Airbus to announce US A320 final assemly line?

Airbus is rumoured to be close to announcing that it will open an A320 Family final assembly line in Mobile, Alabama. Pictured is the Hamburg 320 Family assembly line. (Andrew McLaughlin)

Airbus is reportedly close to announcing that it will open a new A320 Family final assembly line (FAL) in Mobile, Alabama.

According to local newspaper The Mobile Register, a local development official in Mobile could not answer questions about a potential A320 production facility “because no official announcement has been made.”

Similarly, the New York Times reports that sources in Paris have indicated that an announcement on a Mobile factory could come as early as July 2.

As part of its unsuccessful bid for the KC-45 tanker/transport competition, Airbus’s parent company EADS had planned to build the aircraft in Mobile, and also proposed building A330 Freighters there.

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Airbus currently has A320 Family FALs at facilities in Toulouse, Hamburg and Tianjin, China. It is planning to raise total output across these facilities to 42 aircraft per month by the end of 2012, and has also floated taking production up to 60 per month in the future to meet demand for the A320 Family aircraft, which many analysts have insisted will require it to build a new assembly line.